Expenditure competition and a soft budget constraint

This paper offers a two-period small open economy model with publicly provided production inputs. The model confirms that if government's and consumers' relative preferencesfor second period utility coincide, while at the same time the public cost of borrowing and the consumers' return on saving are identical, lump-sum taxation and public debt are equivalent methods of financing public input provision. However, if the public cost of borrowing and the consumers' return on saving do not match, debt financing similarly as capital taxation can depending on circumstances lead to under- or over-provision of public inputs in a small open economy. Furthermore, if the government cannot ex ante commit to a certain expenditure level, the difference between the government's and consumers' discount rate can also result into under- or over-provision of public inputs.